Red Sox Journal: Lester OK after suffering hip injury

Brian MacPherson Journal Sports Writer brianmacp

Friday

Jun 28, 2013 at 9:40 PM

BOSTON — One day after he described his outing as “cut short” in the eighth inning, Jon Lester appeared to have no lingering issues. He’ll approach his next start the same as he would any other start,...

BOSTON — One day after he described his outing as “cut short” in the eighth inning, Jon Lester appeared to have no lingering issues. He’ll approach his next start the same as he would any other start, Boston manager John Farrell said.

“We fully expect him to be on the mound against San Diego next week,” Farrell said.

But because the jammed hip is something Lester admitted he’d felt before, it still can’t just be dismissed as a concern — especially in a stretch in which his ERA has climbed from 2.72 to 4.61 in a span of eight starts.

Over the last five seasons, Lester pitched more than 1,000 innings. He’s on pace to pitch 200 innings this season for the fifth time in six years.

“There’s nothing that is glaring,” Farrell said. “There’s times when, if the stride direction is a little bit across his body, he’ll pinch it at times. I can’t say that there’s the need for some kind of intervention to correct something that’s damaged. That’s not the case. …

“You start to rack up six and seven years of it, the body is only going to be able to sustain so much. But the one thing I want to be clear here is that we’re not dealing with a damage situation. He has something that will rear its head every now and then, and we move on.”

Drew departs with pulled hamstring

After sliding into second with a double in the fourth inning on Friday, Stephen Drew stood up clutching at his right hamstring. He was tended to by a trainer for about a minute before walking off the field. The team announced later he’d been removed with “right hamstring tightness.”

"The wind was kind of playing tricks on us, blowing in, coming out, blowing in," he said. "I thought I'd hit it halfway up the all and it hit lower. I came around first and kind of had to hit a second gear to get to second. That's when I felt the tightness come on."

Brandon Snyder pinch-ran for Drew and took over at third base, pushing Jose Iglesias over to shortstop.

Since a concussion in spring training cost him the first week of the season, Drew has played almost every day for the Red Sox. After a triple and a double Friday night, he was hitting .233 with a .313 on-base percentage and .409 on-base percentage.

A broken ankle suffered in a slide into home plate midway through the 2011 season cost Drew about an entire year’s worth of games, but he’s played in at least 150 games in three of the previous four seasons.

Three straight for Uehara

Koji Uehara already has pitched on back-to-back days this season almost as many times as he did last season. And Farrell called on him again Friday, even though he’d closed out wins on Wednesday and Thursday. He threw 13 pitches and 16 pitches in those two appearances, respectively.

“The last two outings have not been high-stress, even though they’re the ninth inning,” Farrell said.

Sure enough, with the Red Sox up by a 7-5 score, Farrell called on Uehara in the ninth inning Friday. Uehara struck out two in a 1-2-3 inning to close it out.

Uehara last pitched on three straight days during a stretch last September when he pitched on four straight days for the Texas Rangers, though he didn’t throw more than 11 pitches in any of those four appearances.

If Uehara needed a day down, Farrell said, he’d say so.

“He’s done that this year,” the manager said.

So far this season, the 38-year-old Uehara has a 1.97 ERA with 46 strikeouts and seven walks in 32 innings — everything the Red Sox could have expected when they signed him. What they didn’t necessarily expect was the jolt of energy he provides by sheer force of personality.

Buchholz setback

Clay Buchholz will get “a ball in his hand either Saturday or Sunday,” Farrell said. Buchholz has been shut down since Wednesday to relieve inflammation in the bursa sac in his shoulder revealed by an MRI.

“This is the prescribed period to not throw,” Farrell said. “Everything is pointing toward this weekend to initiate that.”

For several weeks, the return of Buchholz has been just around the corner. But Buchholz will only play light catch this weekend, taking smaller steps toward a return to the field than he’d been taking before he was shut down.

Franklin Morales played light catch Friday “just to get his arm moving,” Farrell said. Morales is on the disabled list with a strained pectoral muscle. There is no plan for the next step in his progression back to pitching at this point.

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